Video Review
Masterworks of Soviet CinemaOblomov, The Color of Pomegranates, Siberiade, and The Mirrorby David Gurevich

In a sense, the lifetime of the Soviet Union is roughly comparable to that of a person. The Lenin Years: sowing wild oats, breaking heads, musings on the choice of the right path. The Stalin Years: hard work, building the framework… breaking a lot of heads (while traveling on the chosen path). The Khruschev Years: a mini-middle-age crisis, musings of the wisdom of choice. The Brezhnev Years: settling into the comfortable retirement, living off the IRA (I mean, KGB) savings… commonly referred to as The Stagnation Period. The Andropov Interlude, too brief to merit a label; the Chernenko Moment of all-consuming senility; finally, the Gorbachev Years, with one organ transplant after another, until Yeltsin and Co, like a hard-hearted HMO, refuse to foot any more bills.